Karl Feilder reckons it was a simple sell to McDonald’s Corporation, the world’s largest fast-food company. He would recycle the vegetable oil used to cook their fries, convert it and create biodiesel to serve their trucks that deliver to more than 100 fast-food outlets in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

It wasn’t a completely original idea. The giant burger chain had started the process in similar guises in Europe and the U.S., but the chief executive of the small privately-held business The Neutral Group thought he could offer a more tailored service in Dubai, using exclusively McDonald’s vegetable oil to power its own vans.

That was 2011, and McDonald’s trucks have now travelled more than 2 million kilometers on biodiesel in the U.A.E. British citizen Mr. Feilder has since agreed to help McDonald’s roll out a similar process in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region where the chain is rapidly opening new stores. At the end of 2012, Neutral Fuels, the SME’s biodiesel subsidiary, set up a production facility in Melbourne to serve 152 McDonald’s outlets in the state of Victoria, and eventually aims to integrate 1,000 outlets in the wider Australia market.

Then in September, Neutral Fuels received 4 million Australian dollars from Lignol Energy Corporation, listed on Canada’s TSX Ventures Exchange, to acquire a 40% equity stake in the SME and a 51% interest in its Australia and New Zealand biodiesel operation. This year, Mr. Feilder wants to expand further. “There are two to three new countries on our list,” he said in an interview. “We want to be in five countries by the end of the year.”

China, Japan and Australia are currently McDonald’s biggest markets in the APMEA region, he said, without disclosing in which countries operations would next be started. Based in Dubai, The Neutral Group has set up offices in Australia, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand and South Africa.

As it expands with McDonald’s, The Neutral Group also plans to lower its dependency on the burger giant by expanding the number of clients using its technology and by offering consultancy services to companies keen on reducing their carbon footprint. Atlantis The Palm, one of Dubai’s signature hotels, also uses Neutral Fuels to convert its cooking oil into biodiesel, Mr Feilder said.

The SME sells more than half the biodiesel produced from McDonald’s outlets in the U.A.E. on the open market at the same price as mineral diesel, as agreed with the country’s government. It has held talks with Emirates Group and Etihad Airways to fuel their ground handling vehicles, but no deal has been finalized, Mr. Feilder added.